Run of '89 South Boundary

The town at this crossing was planned before the run began. Lexington's promoters filed their papers on April 22, 1889, named the place for Lexington, Kentucky, and had a post office by February 1890. Across the Canadian stood Purcell, a thriving railroad city in Indian Territory, and Lexington became a whiskey town on that border. Saloons dominated its business until statehood in 1907, a cluster of bars called Sandtown grew on the floodplain between the two towns, and from 1900 the Weitzenhoffer and Turk Distillery, the largest in Oklahoma Territory, operated nearby.

What the plaque says

Run of '89 South Boundary Canadian River was south line of "Old Oklahoma" opened by Run at 12 o'clock noon, April 22, 1889. Riders started at river crossing near here. Many thousands enter- ed the 2,000,000 a. tract north; homes were planted and tent cit- ies sprang up before nightfall.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Citizen Potawatomi Nation Cultural Heritage Center — 30 mi
  The Citizen Potawatomi Nation's national museum and archive in Shawnee, telling a Great Lakes people's road through Kansas to Indian Territory in the Nation's own words and objects.

More markers nearby

• California Trail — 7.5 mi
• Shawnee Mission — 30 mi
• Home on the Range — 33 mi